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Hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren across the Chicago area will stay home from school Monday after Sunday's snowstorm dropped more than a foot of snow. Chicago Public Schools on Sunday evening announced its third weather-related closing this year. The district with nearly 400,000 students also closed two days last month due to cold weather. Also closing Monday are several suburban school districts, including School District U-46 in the northwest suburbs and Plainfield Community Consolidated School District 202. The year's first major winter storm brought heavy snow and strong winds. Numerous area attractions are closed, more than 1,000 flights have been canceled at...

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Hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren across the Chicago area will stay home from school Monday after Sunday's snowstorm dropped more than a foot of snow.
Chicago Public Schools on Sunday evening announced its third weather-related closing this...

After Matthew Haussler pulled the cover from what could be the world's longest hand-drawn picture maze, he said he needed a minute.
Before Sunday afternoon's reveal in a corner of the Block Thirty Seven mall in the Loop, the artist had only seen the...

Days of shorts and flip-flops never seem farther away than in January, but some of the most popular summer camps are opening registration this month. Procrastinate, and your child just might get iced out.
Latin School camps
You don't have to be a...

Winter is, or ought to be, museum season. Outdoor activities do not beckon, or ought not to, especially here in the flatland. And everyone in the house is, or ought to be, stir-crazy. Our area's museums have responded by planning shows on subjects ranging...

His name sounds like one you'd give a character in a parody of patrician privilege.
But the real story of Chesley Bonestell, pronounced BON-uh-stell, has nothing to do with mixing G&Ts or being one of the strongest doubles partners at the club.
...

Attention stargazers: Thursday afternoon's sunset will coincide with a partial solar eclipse. That means the sun — when spied through eclipse glasses or other special viewing devices — will appear crescent-shaped.
"It's a dramatic event,"...

Dozens of residents sat around tables at the Spertus Institute on Tuesday night to discuss the future of Chicago's Museum Campus.
The meeting was the beginning of a broad effort to improve recreation, access, sustainability and education across the...

"From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us," goes a traditional Scottish prayer. But at this time of year, a lot of people savor the possibility of a good fright. Several...

Chicago and much of the country were treated to its second total lunar eclipse of the year just before dawn Wednesday.At 4:18 a.m., the moon slipped into the Earth’s shadow and continued to darken into a total eclipse from 5:27 a.m. until 6:22 a.m. before...

Walt Disney is sticking around, jellyfish are going away while snow monkeys arrive, and David Bowie, as represented by his artifacts, is coming to town. The fall museum calendar is a busy one, unveiling new shows and new events as well as the reprise of...

When you think of zoos, exotic and endangered animals come to mind more often than, say, squirrels and coyotes.
But Lincoln Park Zoo has been studying the critters in our own backyard, and now it is asking the public to pitch in — mostly by flipping...

Billionaire "Star Wars" creator George Lucas, who wants to establish a major museum to house his significant art and movie memorabilia collection, is considering Chicago as the location after plans for his $300 million Lucas Cultural Arts Museum...

Proposed: The best kind of outdoor shower is a meteor shower.
And to let you test that proposition, Chicago’s Adler Planetarium is hosting its annual viewing party for the Perseid meteor shower, caused when Earth passes through the comet Swift-Tuttle’s...

Look! Here's the recent high school graduate Tavi Gevinson swinging from a crab apple tree in her Oak Park backyard — as photographed by Annie Leibovitz and published in Vanity Fair. Look! Here's Tavi Gevinson lying on her single, teenager's bed — looking...

On March 4, 1837, exactly 175 years ago, Chicago was incorporated. Not that Flashback needed a reason, but we took this occasion to compile a very long list of events, year by year and decade by decade, that helped shape this great city. Some events...

If the producers of “American Idol” were hoping for judges who would shed a tear on camera, they got it in pop star Mariah Carey and country singer Keith Urban. The two new judges admitted during a press conference Wednesday at the Adler Planetarium —...

As fans left Wrigley Field after a late-season Cubs loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, they were greeted by clouds of noxious diesel exhaust from charter buses idling outside the ballpark, some for nearly an hour.
On another fall afternoon, three tour...